When I was 22 I moved to a small town in Maine where I knew nobody. My intention was to isolate myself the better to focus on my goal of writing the Great American Novel. Instead I focused on playing a lot of Risk on my Mac Classic. Wow, did I play a lot of Risk. I developed very intense feelings about Kamchatka.
Eventually I had to delete Risk. Even then I did not subsequently write the Great American Novel, or any great novel of any nationality.
I haven’t played a lot of board-type games since then, except for a fitful Settlers of Catan habit. But a few days ago a package landed outside my office containing a sleek black box labeled Risk: Black Ops. This turned out to be a revamped version of the classic game, different in three major ways:
- Everything is very black and serious and sexed-up-looking. You can see some pix at Gamers with Jobs. Also for some reason it smells kinda funny. That should dissipate with use.
- There are now cities, and even capitals, as well as countries, and controlling them gives you better resources, i.e. basically more troops
- There are other ways to win besides total world domination. There are “objectives,” like “take over 4 cities in 1 turn,” and “control Europe,” and “control 2 enemy capitals” and such. Objectives come in major and minor flavors. Complete enough of them and a winner is you!
There are lots more minor wrinkles, but that’s the basic idea. Anyway, it looks like a stylish and well-conceived rethink of a beloved classic, and I’m stoked to play. On to Kamchatka!
